Appreciation: George Harrison (1943-2001)

The moment I logged onto America Online Nov. 30 I saw the unexpected news that Beatles’ lead guitarist and singer George Harrison had passed away at a still too young age of 58.

I, like so many others, am and always will be a Beatles fan and the sudden news of his death still hasn’t sunk in as I write this column.

Then again, I don’t think his death was so sudden after all. I was more shocked in 1999 when I heard that Chicago film critic Gene Siskel lost his battle with cancer.

It’s no secret to Beatles’ fans and those who enjoyed his solo albums after the Fab Four broke up in 1970 that Harrison had been battling cancer since 1997 when he was first treated for throat cancer, which he attributed to his smoking.

"I gave up cigarettes many years ago but had started again for a while and then stopped in 1997," Harrison said.

"I'm not going to die on you, folks, just yet," music icon told the Independent in 1998. "I am very lucky. Sometimes, if you say the word 'cancer' everybody automatically thinks it will end in misery, but it's not always the case. I was very lucky because it (cancer) didn't go anywhere - all it was was a little red mark on my neck."

There is a part of me that was hoping he would actually beat the disease especially after the singer spoke out against reports in the press earlier this year that said he was dying.

According to the Associated Press, that was enough for the singer to come out with a new song called "A Horse to the Water" with an additional name for it called "RIP Ltd. 2001" as kind of a joke.

I am not at all surprised, however, to read how the press is calling Harrison as “the quiet Beatle.” I got that impression about him just by watching the 1964 black and white classic film, "A Hard Day’s Night" (1964).

He exhibited a dry wit throughout the film sometimes giving one-word answers. When a reporter asked Harrison to describe his hairstyle, the singer replied back, “Arthur.” When John Lennon jokingly called the group’s manager a swine, George agreed.

Unlike John Lennon’s and Paul McCartney’s solo albums I got into listening not long after the band’s breakup, I didn’t get into Harrison’s music until 1987 when I was a senior in high school. The only single from Harrison I had heard up until then besides such songs that he sang solo with The Beatles that included "Here Comes the Sun," "Something," and "While my Guitar Gently Weeps" was "My Sweet Lord." That all changed when came out with a bestselling album/CD in 1987 called "Cloud Nine." 

"I couldn't really think of, I racked my brain for weeks and months to try and think of a title (for what would be called "Cloud Nine") because I was trying not to have a song title. We had various titles, had hundreds of them, you know, but the next day none of them seemed to work, you know. It was called "Fab" for a bit, but a lot of people loved "Fab" because they get the joke. It was called so many things in the end I just had to have a title, otherwise the title would never have come out. As there were clouds on the cover, we called it "Cloud Nine." I mean, when you look at the cover it could have been called "Spot the Loony!" But I thought, they know, they (the fans) may not go for that."

One of the singles, "I Got My Mind Set on You", was heard often on the radio that year.

"It was an old song from about 1959, I think," Harrison said. "The writer's name was Rudy Clark. I don't know who he is, but it was an excellent song, but the old version I heard of it was a bit antique and doesn't sound like my version of it, but the song itself had stuck in my head for 20 odd years and just came out on "Cloud Nine." But it rocks along. It is quite a good choice."

He also shot a music video for another one of the songs he did on the same CD called "When We Was Fab" with former bandmate/drummer Ringo Starr that aired on MTV. The song was yet another tribute to the band’s stardom. (Harrison, McCartney and Starr recorded an earlier tribute to Lennon after he was assassinated in 1980 called "All Those Years Ago.")

The years 1987 to 1990 were probably the most productive years for Harrison who, not only recorded the song, "Cheer Down" for the film, "Lethal Weapon 2" (1989), but also formed up a band called "Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1" which featured rock legends Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison. The five of them, however, all went by different names on the CD.

"What I'd really like to do next is to do an album with me and some of my mates...it's this new group I got in mind called the Travelling Wilburys," Harrison said during a radio interview with Bob Coburn on the show, Rockline." "I'd like to do an album with them and then later we can all do our own albums again."

 To my surprise the remaining four produced a second album after Orbison died in 1988 called "Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3."

I had hoped since '87 that Harrison, who was described as the most reclusive of the Fab Four, would come out with another CD with a group of possible new hit singles. I am glad he got together with McCartney, Starr, and Lennon (whose ghostly voice was heard on a cassette tape singing an unfinished lyric) to complete two new Beatles songs in 1995 called “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.”

I have often found myself treasuring the works of famous artists after they’ve passed on. That wasn’t the case with George Harrison.

When "the quiet Beatle" passed, Harrison's wife, Olivia, told fans in a statement "He left this world as he lived it, conscious of God, fearless of death, and at peace, surrounded by family and friends. He often said, "Everything else can wait but the search for God cannot wait and love one another."

This weekend, as I make my annoyingly, dull, hour-long three-day drives from home and to work in McKinney, I’m going to have Harrison’s "Cloud Nine," those Traveling Wilburys CDs and probably a good number of Beatles selections playing loud and clear on my car stereo.

©12/5/01